HIST 4391 - Omnivore’s Past: A Global History of Food

Credit Hours: (3)

Description: This course introduces advanced students to the history of food. Instead of following a chronological thread, it examines the subject of food on different scales, from the microbial to the continental, and from various modes of historical inquiry, including anthropological, economic, and gendered lenses. Omnivore’s Past also creates fresh perspectives on familiar topics (the stuff you eat) by drawing insightful parallels from around the globe—it shows linkages between cannibalism and dieting, anorexia and religious power, mundane cookbooks and the formation of a nation. In short, this class explores methodological approaches to the discipline of history through food.